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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28187106">honest only through the dark</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplefennels7/pseuds/acezukos'>acezukos (purplefennels7)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Acts of Service as a Love Language, Developing Relationship, M/M, Tea, Vignettes, like the beverage not the gossip</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:41:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28187106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplefennels7/pseuds/acezukos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Having a firebender around is very useful when one is constantly forgetting about their cup of tea. </p><p>//</p><p>two times jeong jeong heats piandao's tea, and one time piandao returns the favour.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jeong Jeong/Piandao (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>MMEU Winter Solstice Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>honest only through the dark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaenire/gifts">vaenire</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>vae!! hey again (or for the first time, if you're reading this one first). a very happy solstice to you, now you get TWO fics :) not sure if this qualifies as 'clever,' probably more towards 'hopeful melancholy' but you know how it goes. i hope you like it &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>i.</p><p>The wind whips against the stone walls of the guardhouse, whistling through the cracks between the stones and chilling Piandao to the bone even through his armour. The horizon is grey with cloud cover, casting a sickly pall over the whitecaps scudding along the beach, and the spray from the waves reaches all the way up to the top of the wall, soaking any unlucky soul who happens to be out on it. Anyone who says the Fire Nation is warm all the time has clearly never been stationed on this spirits-damned advance base.</p><p>The guard he’d relieved has been kind enough to leave a half-full pot of tea and a cup, but when he uncurls himself from the corner he’s huddled into and pours himself a cup, it’s gone cold.</p><p>He sighs, considering the merit of drinking it anyway, but discards the notion. It’s the middle of the evening already; caffeine isn’t what he needs right now. Still, he picks the cup up and cradles it between his hands, trying to leach out the meager amount of heat that remains in the china.</p><p>A light rain has started to fall while he’s fiddling with the teapot, the wind picking up the droplets and lashing them against the small windows. It takes him a moment, then, through the wind and the fog, to glimpse the figure cast in shadow atop the wall.</p><p>“Hey,” he shouts, opening the door of the guardhouse and stepping out onto the wall proper, bracing himself against the onslaught of wind and rain. “You’re not meant to be up here.” The figure executes a picture-perfect turn on their heel to approach him, and as their face resolves out of the mist Piandao recognizes his mistake.</p><p>Just as he starts stumbling out his apologies, the Admiral raises an imperious hand, and he falls silent.</p><p>“You were just doing your duty,” he says smoothly, looking unbothered by the rain dampening his long cloak. “Commendable, in these conditions.” </p><p>Piandao squints at him, trying to decide whether he’s being serious. It isn’t exactly like he can abandon his post, no matter how much he wants to. He settles for a noncommittal “Sir” instead. </p><p>“Most soldiers wouldn’t be out on the wall in this weather, intruder or not. It’s...Piandao, right?” Piandao blinks.</p><p>“Y-yes, sir.” There’s easily a thousand people on this base, why does Admiral Jeong Jeong know his name? </p><p>He doesn’t seem particularly inclined to explain further, though, just looks intently at Piandao like he’s trying to pick him apart. Piandao raises his chin and stares right back, refusing to let his eyes drift to the long scars marring the side of his face, or indeed to the striking figure he cuts in cloak and understated tunic. After a minute the Admiral looks away, face impassive, but in spite of it Piandao feels like he’s passed some sort of test.</p><p>“Next time, remember to grab your sword instead of your tea cup,” he says, looking back at him with something that looks dangerously close to a smirk toying with the edge of his mouth. Piandao looks down, too surprised to think about his reaction, and finds that he is still holding the cold cup of tea and his sword is where he’s left it, leaning up against the wall of the guardhouse.</p><p>“Oops,” he says sheepishly, and yeah, that’s definitely a smirk, and Piandao is hard-pressed to ignore how having that look trained directly on him feels a little like looking directly into the sun. </p><p>“Here, let me,” he hears, and then calloused hands are wrapping around his, startlingly warm against his chilled skin, like burning without the pain. Suddenly, there’s steam rising from the surface of his tea, and the Admiral is releasing him and looking supremely self-satisfied.</p><p>“Thanks,” he says faintly, feeling somewhat like he’s in shock as he lifts the cup to his mouth. It’s precisely at the temperature he prefers, and he can’t help a full-body shiver as the hot liquid hits his throat. His fingers are still tingling where the Admiral’s hands had rested.</p><p>“We should rig up something,” he’s saying now, in a tone that suggests that Piandao isn’t expressly meant to be listening. “If we’re making soldiers stand out in the cold for hours, the least we can do is provide tea at a temperature above freezing.”</p><p>He walks a little further along the wall, peering over the edge at the ground below and then holding his hands up in front of him, seemingly eyeballing the distance. Piandao follows, wondering if it’d be rude to escape back into the guardhouse - not that he particularly dislikes the Admiral’s company, but it isn’t exactly getting any warmer and his newly heated cup of tea isn’t going to stay that way forever.</p><p>“What do you think?” comes suddenly from his right, and he jumps and looks over to find the Admiral looking appraisingly at him.</p><p>“Oh, uh, that sounds like a good idea, sir,” he manages - very eloquently, he’s sure.</p><p>“I’m not going to bite your head off, Piandao,” the Admiral replies, amusement colouring his tone. “It’s just an opinion.” </p><p>Piandao nods, because he isn’t sure what else to do, and receives another one of those piercing looks before the Admiral inclines his head and promptly disappears back into the fog, leaving Piandao standing there with his tea steaming away in his hand, feeling simultaneously like he’s flying and like he’s just been hit by a cart. He goes back into the guardhouse feeling strangely light, and more importantly, warm.</p><p>He sees Admiral Jeong Jeong a couple days later, directing a few soldiers in rigging a hidden pulley system on the back of the wall, and he catches his eye and winks. The Admiral winks back, and Piandao has the strangest urge to laugh aloud. A cup of tea <em> would </em> be the thing to get him a personal connection with the youngest flag officer in decades, wouldn’t it. </p><p>To be fair, it was a pretty good cup.</p><p> </p><p>ii.</p><p>Piandao is halfway down a piece of parchment, brushstrokes steady and smooth as a fire crackles away in the grate behind him, when Jeong Jeong slips into the room from the opposite door. Piandao smiles down at the paper, not looking up as he comes over to sit on the other side of the low table and huffs out a breath. </p><p>“Is there something you need?” he asks when he finishes the column, holding back a snort at the way Jeong Jeong is staring at the teacup by Piandao’s elbow like it’s done him personal offense. </p><p>“You know full well.” </p><p>“Spell it out for me?” He’s playing dumb, and is treated to a delightful glare in return.</p><p>“You’ve left your tea again,” Jeong Jeong grumbles, but there’s no heat in it. “Give it.”</p><p>“What if I want it to be cold? Maybe I left it there on purpose,” Piandao deadpans, handing the cup over the table. Jeong Jeong wraps his hands around it, shoulders tensing as he pushes heat into the liquid, and a little knot of concern curls at the bottom of Piandao’s ribcage as he studies him. </p><p>“I swear you keep me around just to reheat things,” Jeong Jeong says when the tea is steaming again, getting up to come around the table and set the cup down. His fingers brush against Piandao’s wrist as he draws away, flaring heat against his skin, and Piandao catches his wrist before he can go too far.</p><p>“Thank you,” he says, and even as Jeong Jeong rolls his eyes there’s a little smile flirting with the edge of his lips. </p><p>“My pleasure.” It’s only a little sardonic, and Piandao kisses the words right out of his mouth, pulling him in tight as if he could ward the world out with just his arms. </p><p>Jeong Jeong is blushing when he lets him go, heat dusting the peaks of his cheekbones and creeping down the back of his neck. He makes no move to return to his seat, instead rearranging himself next to Piandao and letting his head drop onto his shoulder. </p><p>There’s no trace of his perfect, military-trained posture in the languid curve of his posture, breaths evening out and sending the fire flickering in the grate in time with their pace. It’s freedom, carved right into the planes of his body, but Piandao can’t shake the memory of his mouth pressed into a line, the curve of his shoulders sharp enough to cut as he’d bent to warm the tea. He’s seeing that strange tension more and more these days, oceans’ worth of it slipping from Jeong Jeong’s shoulders each time the gates of the estate swing shut behind him. He never knows quite what to say, though, quite what to ask. <em> Are you okay </em> seems too asinine and <em> what’s wrong </em> condescending and <em> you can talk to me </em> too much like fishing for information, and above all he knows Jeong Jeong will laugh them all off because he’s always had a razor tongue and known how to use it. </p><p>He shifts to put his arm around Jeong Jeong’s shoulders, loose brown hair brushing against his skin. There must be a way. There must be something he can do, to stop Jeong Jeong tearing himself apart like this.</p><p>He remembers the first time Jeong Jeong had heated his tea, what feels like a lifetime ago atop the wall at a remote little advance base in the middle of nowhere. His bending had been like an extension of himself, a casual motion like he hadn’t even had to think about it. </p><p>It’s different now, and he doesn’t know why.</p><p>Jeong Jeong’s taken advantage of Piandao’s distraction to pilfer his teacup, and takes a sip from it before holding it out of Piandao’s reach, laughing, as he grabs for it back. </p><p>He pushes his earlier thoughts away with a shake of his head, even though it feels a little closer to swimming up out of a dream. Jeong Jeong is here, and he's laughing, and it’s too soon, maybe, for the words, but Piandao already thinks he knows this is forever. </p><p>How long that forever lasts is a different matter, but he tends not to think about those things. There is no future at war, just the next day, and the next, and the next, and so he just tries to take each as it comes. He’ll say it someday, maybe not today, but somehow he believes that they both know already.</p><p>Piandao doesn’t mean to nod off, but with Jeong Jeong curled warm against his side and the fire leaping with his breaths, it happens without his express permission. The third time his teacup nearly slips from his hands, Jeong Jeong huffs and sits up, plucking it out of his fingers and setting it firmly on the table. </p><p>“After all the work I did to warm this for you and you’re just going to dump it everywhere?” he says, giving him a flat look and turning to face the fire. The flames in the grate jump precariously and then settle, sending a burst of heat out into the room, and he gives Piandao’s shoulder a tug. “Come on, come here.” </p><p>“I’m fine,” Piandao protests - he isn’t going to waste their time together with a pointless afternoon nap. Never mind that he never sleeps quite as well as he does when Jeong Jeong is in the room. “Jay Jay, come on-”</p><p>“What, like I’m going to let you pass up sleep when you look like you haven’t seen your bed in weeks? What do you do to yourself when I’m not around?”</p><p>Piandao doesn’t dignify that with a response, but his silence probably gives the game away. A flash of something indefinable - guilt, maybe, or regret - sweeps across Jeong Jeong’s face, quickly enough that it’s only by the grace of having spent many hours like this that he catches it at all. </p><p>“Never mind that,” Jeong Jeong says before he can open his mouth. “Just-” He seems to lose his words then, tugging at Piandao’s shoulder until he obliges and slides down so he can put his head in his lap, Jeong Jeong’s fingers immediately going to his hair and slipping the clasp of his topknot free. Piandao can feel them shaking, ever so slightly, as he brushes through the wavy strands, and worries. </p><p>He hopes that being here might help. Hopes he can help, as best as he can; be a safe harbour in the storm. Hopes that that can be enough.</p><p>A week later, news of a deserter sweeps the nation.</p><p> </p><p>interlude.</p><p>The estate feels colder without Jeong Jeong around. It’s easier, he finds, to think of it like he’s just away. He’ll be back soon. Piandao just has to be patient.</p><p>But the facts come in the night, like they always do. Not away, but on the run, bounty on his head and the executioner’s knife waiting for him in Caldera. Not back soon, but maybe never, and no amount of patience is going to make this alright. </p><p><em> Why did you have to do it? </em> he asks his bedroom ceiling, lying awake with the moonlight streaming through the open curtains and bleaching the room a sterile white. And quieter, like an echo, <em> why didn’t you take me with you? </em></p><p>He doesn’t have the strength to feel betrayed. It’d be easier, maybe, to let the hurt fester, let it drip black from the ends of his swords, but he wants his last memories of Jeong Jeong to be good ones. </p><p>But the days run into weeks, and the weeks into months, and the months into years, and the march of time goes on and he starts to feel it all fading. He starts forgetting the sound of his laugh, the flint edge of his smirk; he can’t mix the exact colour of his eyes anymore, and every portrait turns out wrong. The attempts stare down at him from the walls of his studio, cold and austere in a way the Jeong Jeong he remembers never was - at least, not around him. </p><p>He can’t bring himself to burn them, though. It feels too close to a funeral. To losing hope, and he thinks that would break him.</p><p>He should’ve painted him more when he could, no matter that he’d never stay long enough for a proper sitting. Maybe then this wouldn’t be happening; at least, he’d have something to remember him by. </p><p>The tea he drinks now is almost always cold. Sometimes he tries to warm them back up, pours the cups back into the kettle and reheats them over the fire. It always just tastes burnt, and he hears Jeong Jeong’s voice in his head, full of fond irritation as he scolds him for leaving it to cool again. Every now and then he swears he can almost feel his hands in his, pushing heat into the freezing cups, but when he feels his own skin it’s like ice. </p><p>He chokes down the cold cups anyway. It feels like punishment, or maybe just laziness, and the chill burns almost as much as the warmth had.</p><p>He has a scar on his left hand, a raised line of flesh all the way across the width of his palm where he’d grabbed a boiling kettle off the fire, trying to save a painting errantly knocked into the flames. He’d nearly burnt down the whole east wing that day, rushing water up in buckets from the river below and wondering whether it’d be easier to let it burn. </p><p>It’s sentiment, nothing else, that keeps him from it, even though every room feels haunted, a reminder of a person he’d used to be and a man he might’ve loved. The estate had been the first thing he’d bought with money not his army pension, the first marker that he could make something of himself even without bending. The slap in the face to the parents he’d barely known.</p><p><em> You are far greater than I will ever be, </em> he remembers Jeong Jeong whispering to him, low and reverent and a little bit desperate, fingers curled into his cheek like five points of flame. <em> Nothing is a gift, not in this world. You have made yourself from what you have and for that, you deserve everything. </em></p><p>Now, he wonders if that sentence might’ve ended, <em> you deserve more than I can give you. </em></p><p>When the fire is finally out he paces through the gutted rooms, ash staining his shoes and the hem of his pants a harsh black. The studio is a cinder; the masses of paper and ink ready fuel for the flames, and the rescued painting hangs limply from his burnt hand. He barely feels the pain.</p><p>Here is the funeral, he thinks. In saving this fading memory he’s done the one thing he’d never been able to do. </p><p>It’s tradition to cremate as soon as possible, to return the soul to their element. If Jeong Jeong is dead, somewhere out in the wilderness, he wouldn’t have wanted that funeral anyway. Not with the resentment curling around his inner flame, the self-hatred that Piandao had noticed far too late. </p><p>He doesn’t rebuild. In fact, he barely takes the time to sweep the ashes out before he shuts and locks the tall doors, their slamming echoing through the foyer like a death knell. </p><p>It’s fitting, really. He feels hollowed out most days, like he’s been scorched through too, only the bones left standing. Jeong Jeong’s burned himself up, cinders far before his time, and Piandao thinks that maybe he’s warping under the weight of it. Fire might harden steel, but maybe people were never meant to be steel anyway. There’s nothing more that lingering will bring him, except more of this cold melancholy, and he doesn’t know if he’ll make it through another winter with it. </p><p> </p><p>iii.</p><p>Jeong Jeong stays, after it all. Piandao hadn’t realized, really, how much he’d expected him not to; not until he sees him crouched next to a fire in the camp with a set of spark rocks and feels relief like cool spring breeze rush through him. </p><p>He isn’t sure what possesses him to offer a bed at the estate while he awaits his pardon, nor does he expect Jeong Jeong to accept. But it’s been three mornings now that they’ve found themselves sitting next to each other in the courtyard, watching the sun come up over a world without a war. He looks over at him now, eyes shut and head tipped back to let the dawn light wash over him, white hair practically glowing, and the last piece of something that’s been off-kilter for what must be decades slots back into place. </p><p>“Hey,” he says, and Jeong Jeong’s eyes come open. “We made it.” It’s a stupid little thing to say, a couple words to encompass a lifetime, but to his astonishment, Jeong Jeong gives him a fleeting smile.</p><p>“Surprisingly enough,” he says, and isn’t that the truth. They’ve spent most of their lives on the right side of a wrong war, men without a country, and even though they’ve never spoken of it in so many words, Piandao instinctively knows that neither of them really expected to make it all the way to the other side.</p><p>He hadn’t expected to be here, either, he thinks as Jeong Jeong turns to look out over the low wall. Hadn’t expected to ever see Jeong Jeong again, not after everything. </p><p>It’s a tentative sort of peace that now rests between them; not of not knowing where they stand but of an unspoken acceptance. There’s too much healing that still needs to be done, too many wounds still left unclosed, and all that that will take is time. </p><p>They have that, now. More than they’ve ever had, more than they ever could’ve hoped for, and maybe these will be the golden days they’d never really gotten to have. It’s love, sure, but it’s so much more than that. It’s the lives they’ve lived in parallel, chasing each other through the same paths year after dragging year. Now that their roads have converged again, Piandao doesn’t intend to give it up, not for the world. </p><p>They still don’t speak much, but the silence is comfortable, the warmth of a well-worn cloak in the winter, and more often than not they end their days together, drinking tea or playing a round of pai sho as the sun sinks past the horizon. When Jeong Jeong doesn’t come wandering into the room after dinner, then, Piandao only waits for a little bit before getting up and going looking.</p><p>He finds him in the dining room, staring sightlessly down at a familiar-looking teacup. </p><p>“Jeong Jeong?” he says tentatively, coming up next to him and stepping in close, just enough so their shoulders touch. “You okay?”</p><p>“It’s gone cold,” Jeong Jeong says, voice hollow, and when he looks up and meets Piandao’s eyes, his gaze is empty. “I can’t heat it.”</p><p><em> Oh. </em> </p><p>Memory hits him like a spear through the chest; all the years of cold tea in the mornings, all the paintings he’d never had the colours to finish. The pile of ashes in the east wing. </p><p>“Come with me,” he says in lieu of a response, reaching over and gently lifting the teacup out of Jeong Jeong’s hands. When he doesn’t move, he switches the cup to one hand and tucks the other through the crook of Jeong Jeong’s elbow, tugging him gently in the direction of the kitchens. Halfway there, warm fingers slide into his, and he just manages not to jump. The breath he lets out is tinged with more than a little relief, and Jeong Jeong’s hand in his feels as familiar as the halls they’re walking even though they haven’t touched this much in decades. </p><p>“What are we doing here?” Jeong Jeong asks as they step through the door to the main kitchen and Piandao releases him, setting the cup down on the counter and starting to fill a teapot with water.</p><p>“Tea, of course,” he replies, setting it over the fire to boil.</p><p>He loses himself in the familiar routine of tea-making, spooning out tea leaves into the empty cup, pouring the water over the leaves and swirling them to steep. He can feel Jeong Jeong’s eyes on him the whole time; apprehensive, if he had to guess, and confused, but he deliberately doesn’t look back at him, focusing on his task until the cup is made to perfection. </p><p>“Why did you do this?” Jeong Jeong asks when he comes over to him, tea lapping at the rim of the cup, and presses it into his hands. Piandao smiles, folding Jeong Jeong’s fingers around the teacup and stepping back. </p><p>“I don’t care that you can’t heat the tea anymore. Don’t deny it, I know that’s what you were thinking,” he adds as Jeong Jeong starts to shake his head. “I don’t keep you around because you’re useful. If you wanted to lounge around the estate all day, you’ve more than earned that right. If you’d never started heating my forgotten teacups in the first place I would’ve just come down here and made new ones myself.” </p><p>Jeong Jeong is looking at him, caught somewhere between disbelief and a raw, flayed-open kind of vulnerability, and it breaks Piandao’s heart. The world has told him, again and again, that he needs to have value to be valued, and Piandao wants - no, <em> needs </em> him to know that that doesn’t matter to him. </p><p>“You don’t need to do anything for me,” he repeats. “Being here is enough.”</p><p>Jeong Jeong’s eyes drop to the teacup, but he stays silent. </p><p><em> Stay, </em> Piandao begs, inches away from saying it aloud. <em> Stay. </em>He’ll make Jeong Jeong tea until the end of his days if it’s what it takes to convince him.</p><p>He lifts the cup to his mouth and takes a long sip, and Piandao doesn’t need words to know what he’s saying</p><p><em> I’m staying. </em> </p><p>He thinks he might unlock the doors of the east wing again. Scrub away the last of the soot, repaint the walls and relay the tiles. Start filling the walls with paintings again. East is the sacred direction, the sunrise, the new day dawning. He’d thought it fitting, when it’d burned - there had been no dawn then, no love, little hope - and he thinks it even more now. Jeong Jeong is here, and he’s alive, and he’s staying, and it’s going to be enough. </p><p>When he looks up Jeong Jeong is smiling at him, weak and tentative, over the rim of his teacup, and a great warmth blooms in his chest and tingles down to the tips of his fingers. </p><p>They’re going to be alright.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>are x+1 fics in style anymore, and if they aren't, can i bring them back?</p><p>playlist <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5HtCxP4BOnT46aEMLzjLEd?si=mWdeo24gTSCDygiIeVBMkA">here</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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